Search results

This is the second round of the Community Partnerships for Older Adults (CPFOA) Program Survey of Older Adults. Like the first round, which was fielded in 2002 and released as ICPSR 4301 (Community Partnerships for Older Adults (CPOA) Program Survey of Older Adults, 2002), the second round was conducted as part of the evaluation of the CPFOA Program, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) aimed at promoting improvements in the organization and delivery of long-term care and supportive services for older adults through local public-private partnerships. The 2002 survey was conducted in the 13 communities in which partnerships received development grants from RWJF, and, in 2008, the survey was repeated in the eight of them in which partnerships received implementation grants from the Foundation. The goal of the survey was to improve understanding of the characteristics of older adults, their knowledge and perceptions about issues related to long-term care, and their use of long-term care services and support. In addition, the data collected by the survey enabled the communities to target the partnership's activities in the most effective way.

The second round was based on the 2002 survey instrument. Changes to the instrument were minimized so that the data from the 2002 and 2008 rounds would be comparable. The instrument was modified to delete questions that had low item response in 2002, to add questions requested by the partnerships, to add questions for decision-makers, or to modify questions that were outdated. As in 2002, the 2008 survey interviewed respondents about supportive and long-term care services for older adults in their communities, including the availability, use of, and quality of the services and sources of information about them. Respondents were asked if they expected to stay in their community, if their homes needed repairs or modifications to improve their ability to live in them, how important it was to be able to live in their own home as they grew older, the age at which they thought they would need help to continue living in their own home, and the age at which they thought they could no longer live at home because of health problems. The survey also collected information on health status, problems with activities of everyday life, health insurance coverage and long-term care insurance, hospital stays, living arrangements, social activities, support from family and friends, access to transportation, and demographic characteristics.

The Helping Young Smokers Quit (HYSQ) initiative was a multi-phase project that addressed the critical need to disseminate effective, developmentally appropriate cessation programs for young smokers. Phase I identified and described tobacco treatment programs available for youth in the United States, Phase II evaluated smoking secession programs tailored for youth to help understand what works, and Phase III identified factors associated with program sustainability. Phase II collected data from five sources: (1) program participants, (2) program providers, (3) program curricula, (4) organizational leaders, and (5) community leaders and community ordinances.

Program participants were interviewed at baseline, end-of program, 6-month follow-up, and 12-month follow-up. Topics covered by the interviews include age, gender, race, Hispanic origin, language spoken at home, employment, income, religiosity, school enrollment, education level, school grades, height, weight, extracurricular activities, recreation, sports, exercise, aspirations after high school, psychological well-being, alcohol consumption, cigarette use and use of other tobacco products, attitudes about smoking, plans to stop/continue smoking, attempts to quit smoking, reasons for participating in the program, topics/issues covered by the program, opinions about the program, and smoking experience since the beginning of the program. In addition, for each follow-up survey, the participants provided a breath sample for carbon monoxide analysis to validate self-reported quit status.

After the last session of each program delivery, the program providers, such as program leaders and cessation counselors, were interviewed about the content and delivery of the program and the reactions of the participants and themselves to the program as delivered. The program providers also kept attendance records.

Curriculum content was abstracted from program manuals and other materials used in each program.

Organizational leaders of the organizations that offered the programs were surveyed about various aspects of each organization, including the organization's smoking cessation program and the organization's mission, general operations, and smoking-related policies and practices.

Community-level information was collected in two ways: (1) interviews of community leaders representing local health departments, school boards, and juvenile justice offices, and (2) archival research of public ordinances relevant to tobacco and control policies.

Nine data files/datasets constitute the data. Datasets 1-4 contain the participant questionnaire data, carbon monoxide measurement data, and program attendance data. Dataset 5 comprises information about each program and its curriculum, some information about the community in which the program was located, and summary data about enforcement of tobacco-related ordinances. Dataset 6 contains information about about the program providers and each program delivery, including recruitment, logistics, content, and the reactions of providers and participants. Dataset 7 covers administrative aspects of the smoking cessation programs and each offering organization's mission, general operations, and smoking-related policies and norms. Dataset 8 contains information about local and state-level tobacco-related ordinances for every state and local jurisdiction where each program was located, and Dataset 9 condenses the information in Dataset 8 into one summary record for each community. The unit of observation for Datasets 1-4 is the participant, for Datasets 5 and 7 the smoking cessation program/offering organization, for Dataset 6 the program delivery/program cohort, for Dataset 8 the ordinance, and for Dataset 9 the community.

This study was one of three modules in a larger study designed to define, identify, and disseminate information about best practice physical activity programming in community-based organizations. The National Council on the Aging (NCOA), together with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), conducted Module 1, a national competition for NCOA Awards for Excellence in Physical Activity Programming. The purpose of the competition was to bring national attention to best practice in physical activity programming operated by local public or non-profit organizations that serve older adults. NCOA was assisted in this endeavor by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the Healthy Aging Research Network of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Prevention Research Centers, and a variety of nationally known physical activity experts. Module 2 was a census of physical activity programs for older adults that was conducted in seven locations by Healthy Aging Research Network. Module 3 was this National Impact Study, a study of best practice programming at three community-based organizations serving older adults. It was designed to answer the research question, "Do best practice physical activity programs provided by community-based organizations have a measurable impact on the health and well being of participants?" The three studied organizations were among the ten winners of the best practice competition.

Data were collected from previously sedentary, volunteer participants from each of the three organizations. The goal was to enroll 250 older adults at each site for a total of 750 subjects across the three programs. At each site, one half of all subjects (n = 125) were to be assigned to the treatment group and the other half to a control group. Subjects in the treatment group participated in the best practice program classes while the control group could enroll in other exercise classes but not the best practice program classes. The subjects were to be interviewed three times: baseline, three months, and nine months. Each interview contained two parts: (1) the administration of health and exercise related questions and (2) the administration of four physical fitness tests that assessed the respondent's strength, flexibility and aerobic endurance. Background information collected by the survey includes age, education, employment status, marital status, income, race, and Hispanic origin.